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Had an insane first half of the year now super slow. Trying to determine whether I'm being frozen out.

1. Corporate work is super lumpy.
2. Corporate stuff is just slow right now unless your involved in the components of restructurings.

SmokeytheBear wrote:1. Corporate work is super lumpy.
2. Corporate stuff is just slow right now unless your involved in the components of restructurings.

I hear ya. I'm staffed on a ton of stuff but nothing is moving. Just get paranoid about being shown the door. Don't want this forever but would like to make professional moves on my own terms.

Anonymous User wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:1. Corporate work is super lumpy.
2. Corporate stuff is just slow right now unless your involved in the components of restructurings.

I hear ya. I'm staffed on a ton of stuff but nothing is moving. Just get paranoid about being shown the door. Don't want this forever but would like to make professional moves on my own terms.

Are you a stub or a first year?

If you're staffed on deals, you're staffed on deals. That's what matters. They will start firing eventually. I've had deals lay dormant for months after I get staffed on them then all of a sudden it's balls to the wall for two months. The life cycle of a deal is fuckin weird.

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:1. Corporate work is super lumpy.
2. Corporate stuff is just slow right now unless your involved in the components of restructurings.

I hear ya. I'm staffed on a ton of stuff but nothing is moving. Just get paranoid about being shown the door. Don't want this forever but would like to make professional moves on my own terms.

Are you a stub or a first year?

If you're staffed on deals, you're staffed on deals. That's what matters. They will start firing eventually. I've had deals lay dormant for months after I get staffed on them then all of a sudden it's balls to the wall for two months. The life cycle of a deal is fuckin weird.

Class of 2015

2nd year here. Been very slow the past two months and same for the rest of my class. Hopefully picks up soon, otherwise I will be nervous about a recession coming on.

At 1100 on the year and will be surprised if I break 1500 at year end. First year (well, second year sort of...rising second year).

Anonymous User wrote:At 1100 on the year and will be surprised if I break 1500 at year end. First year (well, second year sort of...rising second year).

Same year as you and I'll probably be on the wrong side of 1000 considering the holidays.

most juniors are slow right now. worrying about this is out of your control, so you should just worry about those things you can control.

Second year. I've been extremely slow at times, but not at the moment.

That being said, you're unlikely to find any real correlation between how busy others are outside of your own firm/practice group at this time. If you're working on deals, do your best to understand what's going on from a more high-level perspective. What is the timeline until Closing? Who's working on what? What are the timelines for each work stream? Is any one thing a priority at the moment, and have you been involved with that particular work stream? Become familiar with these things, and then it will make sense why or why not certain times are slow or intense.

It's tough because rarely will anyone go out of their way to include you in the conversation unless it's specifically about your individual assignment, but it doesn't hurt to ask and show some interest/ownership over the progress of the deal.

If you're just working bits and pieces of several deals every now and then, you're going to have to repeatedly demonstrate yourself and eventually you'll [hopefully] get an opportunity to take something more substantial on from a senior associate or a partner may ask you.

Fifth year. Slowest I've been in 5 years.

I was very busy the first half and then things slowed down a bit a month ago (think 120hrs a month). I'm currently staffed on 10 things but not much is moving. I feel like mid-levels and seniors are extremely busy. Some of this might be because of the incoming first years too.

I'm always surprised how much SV corp seems out of step with other markets. My read on SV corp is that it's very busy right now. I think it was much slower about a year ago when corporate associates on this site were saying they were slammed.

oblig.lawl.ref wrote:I'm always surprised how much SV corp seems out of step with other markets. My read on SV corp is that it's very busy right now. I think it was much slower about a year ago when corporate associates on this site were saying they were slammed.

OP here. Last year around this time I was absolutely drowning. I think I pulled three consecutive 300-hour months. Awful. Now I have absolutely nothing to do and it's also stressful. Biglaw sucks.

I'm on track for 1,600 @ year-end. "Rising" 2nd year in NYC.

oblig.lawl.ref wrote:I'm always surprised how much SV corp seems out of step with other markets. My read on SV corp is that it's very busy right now. I think it was much slower about a year ago when corporate associates on this site were saying they were slammed.

Can second that SV corporate is busy.

h2go wrote:

oblig.lawl.ref wrote:I'm always surprised how much SV corp seems out of step with other markets. My read on SV corp is that it's very busy right now. I think it was much slower about a year ago when corporate associates on this site were saying they were slammed.

Can second that SV corporate is busy.

I guess that explains why I am getting more emails from recruiters about SV opportunities than normal.

I'm a junior in NYC not at a V10, and I was surprised by the posts above -- I work in Capital Markets, which has been absolutely insane since the summer of 2016. Everyone is completely overwhelmed and on pace to bill 2400+. Our other groups aside from M&A have been very busy too. M&A was allegedly dead earlier in the year (like under 10 hours a month dead), but has picked up since August.

Not bragging btw - it sucks and everyone is at the end of their rope. Would much rather be slow. Not sure if we're just understaffed or what.

Junior. Just broke 2,000. Mostly General corp and M&A. Firm does to be slowing down though.

Lol definitely understaffed or staffed correctly if you ask the partners

Maybe an uptick in BK-related work, but I've heard everything from "I haven't been this busy since '07" to people who are pretty dead. It's like corporate always is basically. Don't stress bro.

skers wrote:Maybe an uptick in BK-related work, but I've heard everything from "I haven't been this busy since '07" to people who are pretty dead. It's like corporate always is basically. Don't stress bro.

This.

Not corp myself but yes it does seem slow over here too.

My feeling is that corporate in Los Angeles has been "slower" this year than average (based purely off my own experience and friends at some other places). However, it could just be our offices, it's really hard to generalize a market as a whole since all you really know is how slow your own office is. Could be completely different at a firm across the street or the same firm but office in another market.

smokeylarue wrote:My feeling is that corporate in Los Angeles has been "slower" this year than average (based purely off my own experience and friends at some other places). However, it could just be our offices, it's really hard to generalize a market as a whole since all you really know is how slow your own office is. Could be completely different at a firm across the street or the same firm but office in another market.

Hey bro this town ain't big enough for two Smokeys.